Make-It Blog

Ideas, tools, and alternatives for your DIY electronics projects.

• Arduino Project Ideas for Students: Builds That Impress Professors and Teach Real Skills — Arduino is showing up in university labs, high school classrooms, and college dorm rooms for good reason. It bridges the gap between textbook theory and phys...
• Fun Arduino Projects to Build With Your Kids — Getting kids into electronics doesn't have to mean boring tutorials or dry theory. Arduino is one of the best platforms for learning with your hands, and the...
• Best Tools for Amazon Alexa Smart Home: Getting More Out of Your Echo Setup — Amazon's Alexa ecosystem is the easiest entry point into smart home living. You grab an Echo, connect a few devices, and suddenly you're turning off lights w...
• Best Tools for Apple HomeKit: Building a Smart Home the Apple Way — If you're already in the Apple ecosystem with iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches, then HomeKit is the natural choice for your smart home. It's privacy-f...
• Best Tools for Arduino in 2026: What You Actually Need — If you're getting into Arduino or you've been tinkering for a while, you already know the board itself is just the beginning. The real magic happens with the...
• Best Tools for ESP32 and ESP8266: What Every Maker Should Have — ESP boards are the workhorses of the DIY IoT world. Whether you're building a WiFi-connected sensor, a Bluetooth remote, or a full smart home device, the ESP...
• Best Tools for Google Home: Devices, Apps, and Tricks for a Smarter Setup — Google Home (now mostly branded under the Google Nest umbrella) has matured into a genuinely capable smart home platform. If you're invested in the Google ec...
• Best Tools for Home Assistant: Addons, Integrations, and Gear Worth Installing — Home Assistant is the open-source smart home platform that puts you in control of your own house. No cloud dependency, no vendor lock-in, just your devices, ...
• Best Tools for Raspberry Pi: The Gear and Software That Actually Matter — The Raspberry Pi is one of those rare pieces of tech that can be almost anything. A media center, a home server, a retro gaming console, a weather station, o...
• ESP32 Project Ideas for Students: Connected Builds for Class, Research, and Your Resume — The ESP32 has one killer feature that makes it perfect for student projects: built-in WiFi and Bluetooth on a board that costs less than a coffee. That conne...
• First Project Ideas With an Arduino Kit: What to Build When You're Just Starting Out — You bought an Arduino starter kit. The box is open, there are bags of components everywhere, and the little blue board is staring at you. Now what?
• First Project Ideas With a Raspberry Pi: What to Do After Unboxing — You've got a Raspberry Pi, a power supply, and a microSD card. Maybe a case. Maybe a keyboard and mouse. You plug it in, Raspberry Pi OS loads up, and you're...
• Fun Projects to Build with Your Kids Using Home Assistant — **Want to spend quality time with your kids while teaching them real tech skills?** Home Assistant is way more than a smart home platform. It's a playground ...
• How to Start With Arduino as a Student: A No-Fluff Beginner Guide — You keep hearing about Arduino in class, in forums, or from that one friend who won't stop talking about their robot. You want to try it but don't know where...
• How to Start With ESP32 as a Student: Your Entry Into WiFi-Connected Projects — The ESP32 is what you reach for when your project needs to go online. It's a microcontroller like Arduino, but with WiFi and Bluetooth built right into the c...
• How to Start With Raspberry Pi as a Student: From Unboxing to Actually Useful — The Raspberry Pi isn't a microcontroller. It's a full computer that runs Linux, and that distinction matters. While Arduino and ESP32 are great for single-pu...
• Raspberry Pi Project Ideas for Students: Practical Builds for Every Major — The Raspberry Pi is a full Linux computer for the price of lunch. For students, that means you can run servers, process data, host applications, and interact...
• Raspberry Pi Projects to Build With Your Kids — A Raspberry Pi is basically a full computer the size of a credit card, and that makes it perfect for projects with kids. Unlike microcontrollers, the Pi has ...
• Top Alternatives to Amazon Alexa: Smart Home Platforms That Respect Your Privacy (or Your Preferences) — Amazon Alexa is the biggest name in smart home voice assistants, but it's not for everyone. Maybe you're uncomfortable with Amazon's data practices. Maybe yo...
• Top Alternatives to Apple HomeKit: Smart Home Platforms Beyond the Apple Ecosystem — Apple HomeKit offers the best privacy story in mainstream smart home, but it comes with real limitations. Fewer compatible devices, higher prices, and a wall...
• Top Alternatives to Arduino: Other Boards Worth Considering — Arduino made microcontrollers accessible to everyone. It's the board that launched a million maker projects and it's still a great platform. But it's not the...
• Top Alternatives to ESP32 and ESP8266: Other Wireless Microcontrollers Worth Knowing — The ESP32 and ESP8266 have earned their place as the default choice for WiFi-enabled maker projects. They're cheap, well-documented, and supported by a massi...
• Top Alternatives to Google Home: Smart Home Platforms for People Who Want Options — Google Home is a solid smart home platform, especially if you're already living in the Google ecosystem. But there are plenty of reasons someone might want t...
• Top Alternatives to Home Assistant: Other Smart Home Platforms Worth Considering — Home Assistant is the Swiss Army knife of smart home platforms. It supports everything, runs locally, and gives you complete control. But that power comes wi...
• Top Alternatives to Raspberry Pi: What to Buy When the Pi Isn't Right — The Raspberry Pi is the most popular single-board computer in the world, and that popularity is well deserved. But stock shortages over the past few years pu...
• Top Amazon Alexa Smart Home Project Ideas: Automations and Setups Worth Building — Most people use Alexa for timers and playing music. That's fine, but the platform can do so much more. With the right devices and some creative automation, A...
• Top Apple HomeKit Project Ideas: Smart Home Setups That Work With Your Apple Life — HomeKit's appeal isn't about having the most devices or the flashiest features. It's about things that work reliably, respect your privacy, and fit naturally...
• Top Arduino Project Ideas: From Beginner Builds to Advanced Creations — Arduino is one of those platforms where you can go from blinking an LED to building a working robot in a surprisingly short time. The community has produced ...
• Top ESP32 and ESP8266 Project Ideas: WiFi-Connected Builds That Actually Do Something — The ESP32 and ESP8266 are the boards you reach for when your project needs to talk to the internet. They're cheap, they have WiFi built in, and they're power...
• Top Google Home Project Ideas: Smart Automations and Setups That Make Life Easier — Google Home is more capable than most people give it credit for. Beyond playing music and answering trivia, it can run a smart home that adapts to your sched...
• Top Home Assistant Project Ideas: Automations and Setups That Make Your Home Smarter — Home Assistant can do practically anything in a smart home. That's both its greatest selling point and the reason a lot of people install it, stare at the da...
• Top Raspberry Pi Project Ideas: Practical Builds That Are Actually Worth Your Time — The Raspberry Pi can do almost anything a full computer can do, just in a smaller, cheaper package. That flexibility is both its greatest strength and its bi...